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Every Rep Counts

A sea of fans showed up to support their athletes. Can you find any you know?

WOW. What an intense weekend. The Southern California CrossFit Regionals just tore thru Pomona and for many of your LAXers this might have been your first experience with an official Games event. Hopefully most of you went out there to cheer Shira on as she went toe to toe with some of the best CrossFitters in the world – let alone SoCal.

I want to talk about something I saw at the Games, that rung true in at least two glaring ways from events I saw.

In this sport, every single rep counts.

At the box, this fact should go without saying. Ultimately we’re all in this to better our own fitness, so there’s really no point in taking any rep off. The only person you’re truly hurting is yourself.

However, at the stage of the world’s elite – it might be a different game. Here, giving up a few seconds early or the miscount of a rep might mean the difference between going to The CrossFit Games as an athlete or a fan come July. Needless to say, the stakes are pretty damn high.

Kris showing she can put a lil bit of weight overhead

Count Skipping

Event 5 of the 2012 Regionals was the Snatch Ladder. Every minute, on the minute, athletes would progress up in weight of an attempted snatch. The only twist – they had to do 20 double unders after they moved before they could attempt their snatch. I was standing 5 feet from Kristen Clever at one point in the ladder. Her judge was pretty geeked, and I could see him slowly drifting off count – to Kristen’s favor. He ended up calling her done when she was really on rep 18.

Kristen, being the champion she is, continued and did two extra double unders, much to the bewilderment of the judge before putting her rope down and nailing her snatch attempt. She then turned to the judge and politely informed him that he was counting too fast.

Kris is a world champ, and she’s there for a reason. She holds herself to the standards of completing every rep. She could have easily put down her rope and saved herself 2 jumps – but embracing that mentality would only put her at a disadvantage, as it would permeate into her daily training and reflect on her performances when it matters.

Shira took the only road to Regionals - Hard Work.

Getting Every Rep You Can

Back when I was a wee lad taking tests in college, I was taught a simple premise. If you finish a test early, use every second you’re given to make sure you’re answers are completely right. If you don’t and you miss a question, you’re a fool for not using every opportunity you had to get it done right. This paradigm applies to CrossFit perfectly.

We saw this with our very own Shira during the Open. On the last day of the Open, she did 12.5 THREE times on the final Sunday. Shira diligently used the entire day Sunday to get as many quality attempts in to raise her 12.5 score as much as possible. The reward for her efforts? It turned out that she needed every single rep she gained in her final attempt to make Regionals. If she didn’t redo it that one last time mere minutes before the cutoff to submit came, she would not have made Regionals.

I witnessed this several times during the Regionals as well, each with their own immediate and/or lasting impacts of their own. Val Voboril sprinting to the finish on Event 2. CrossFit 760 making a tripping/diving finish for the tie in Team Event 1. Lindsay Valenzuela pressing thru as many burpee box jump overs as she could – even though in her mind she had already conceded the final Games spot to Andrea Ager in Event 6. Although it didn’t impact the standings, Lindsay could have given up in the final seconds – but the last jump she got as time expired allowed her to beat out Shannon Humphreys for 5th place in the event.

Learn.

We’re blessed to have some of the best right here in our stomping grounds showing us what it is to be champions. Watch them. Listen to them. Learn from them. They didn’t get to where they are by happenstance. Of course these are just a couple tidbits, but something I felt were important enough to mention.